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Chapter 10: The black rose widow

Chapter 10: The black rose widow

The tip of the foil appeared before his throat so fast that Aldric barely had time to tilt his head.

The blade grazed his neck, leaving a thin line of blood. Had his reaction been even a fraction slower, the point would have gone straight through his windpipe.

Aldric fell back, and the staff in his hand released a ring of fire.

Flames erupted between the two of them, but Catrina didn’t stop. She merely twisted her left wrist, and dozens of threads of black mana instantly appeared in the air.

They were so thin they were nearly invisible.

The dark threads wove themselves into a net, splitting the fire into segments before dragging the entire spell to either side. The heat swept across her white cloak but couldn’t touch her body.

Catrina continued forward.

The foil thrust at the wrist holding the staff.

Aldric blocked with a short sword, but the instant the two blades met, a black thread had already coiled around his ankle. Catrina gave a light pull, throwing his balance off.

The foil’s tip immediately changed direction, piercing through the armor at his shoulder.

Blood sprayed out.

Aldric gritted his teeth and used a burst of mana to shove her back. Three blades of light materialized around him and launched forward in unison.

Catrina leaned aside to dodge the first, deflected the second with her foil. The final blade cut through her cloak, leaving a long tear, but still failed to reach her body.

A black thread had already appeared behind Aldric’s back.

It wound around his elbow and pulled hard, sending the short sword clattering to the ground.

Aldric realized at once that Catrina’s fighting style was not a series of isolated attacks.

Every thrust of the foil forced him to move in a specific direction.

Every time he dodged, threads of mana were already waiting at the spot where he was forced to land.

She was controlling the entire battlefield.

Giving him no choice.

The foil’s tip appeared before his eyes again.

Aldric tilted his head, but this time he couldn’t fully avoid it. The blade pierced through his left cheek and withdrew, leaving a wound that stretched nearly to his ear.

He stumbled back several steps, and the composure he’d been clinging to finally vanished.

’Impossible.’

’Catrina can’t be this strong right now.’

In the storyline, she only became dangerous after breaking the curse and reclaiming the power of House Veyr. Before that point, she was merely a disfigured widow with no forces and no one who took her seriously.

But the woman before him already had Black Rose.

And she knew him.

Catrina shouldn’t have known him at this point in time.

Aldric raised his staff, erected three layers of barriers in succession, and demanded: "What do you know? Who told you about me?"

Catrina didn’t answer.

The foil struck the first barrier.

A small crack rang out.

Black threads simultaneously wrapped across the surface, seeking the weakest points in the mana. In just a few seconds, the first barrier shattered into countless shards of light.

The blade continued through the second layer.

Aldric slammed his staff into the ground, and dozens of stone pillars shot up between them. He used the opening to retreat toward the Avarenne escort.

Garran immediately raised his sword.

"Don’t come any closer!"

Aldric shouted: "This woman is an enemy of House Avarenne! She wants to destroy the betrothal between me and Leviana. Why aren’t you helping me?"

Garran gave no reaction.

A guard standing behind him said coldly: "You just called Lady Leviana your wife, yet her current betrothal belongs to Young Master Lathel."

"That’s only a temporary replacement."

"That’s for Duke Cassian to decide, not you."

Aldric hadn’t expected even the Avarenne guards to dare talk back to him.

In the storyline, after he rescued Cassian at Grail Pass, this entire family was supposed to be grateful to him. The guards before him should have been rushing to protect him, not standing by while he was attacked.

’What changed?’

’Was it Leviana?’

’Or was it Lathel?’

The second thought was dismissed the moment it appeared.

It couldn’t be Lathel.

An Extra with no power couldn’t accomplish anything.

The stone pillars in front of him were suddenly sliced into sections.

The cuts were so fine that at first no one noticed. Only when Catrina stepped through did the pillars all collapse behind her at once.

Aldric raised another barrier.

Catrina still didn’t speak another word.

The foil thrust forward while black threads simultaneously locked down both flanks. Aldric was forced to leap back, but the instant his feet touched the ground, a thread had already coiled around his wrist.

He swung the staff to break free.

The black thread suddenly split into dozens of branches, crawling along his arm before locking his shoulder and elbow in place.

Another thread wound around his neck.

Catrina pulled gently.

Aldric was forced to one knee.

Black Rose didn’t press the attack further. The female soldiers only surrounded him, cutting off every route of retreat, leaving their leader to handle him alone.

Catrina walked up to stand before Aldric.

The tip of the foil rested against the center of his chest.

"You..."

Aldric fought to maintain his composure. "If you kill me, you’ll be facing my family, the Royal Academy, and everyone standing behind me. Over a simple misunderstanding, you want to drag all of House Veyr down with you?"

"I’ve already lost everything once."

Catrina’s voice remained calm.

"One family isn’t enough to make me stop."

The blade pushed deeper, piercing through the armor and touching skin.

Aldric could feel real killing intent.

She wasn’t performing.

Wasn’t threatening.

Catrina truly intended to drive the blade through his heart.

"Why?"

He asked through gritted teeth: "I’ve never done anything to you."

Catrina looked at him through the mask.

"You killed him."

Aldric went rigid.

Him?

He didn’t know who she was talking about.

According to the storyline, Catrina once had a husband, but the man had fled after cursing her face. After that, she never publicly loved any other man.

A thought came quickly.

"Lathel?"

The foil’s tip paused for an instant.

That single instant was enough for Aldric to know he had guessed correctly.

He truly didn’t understand.

Catrina shouldn’t have known Lathel at this point. Even later in the storyline, the two had only met a handful of times. Lathel died very early, and Catrina didn’t appear until many years after.

Why was she saying he had killed Lathel?

Why did that voice sound like it carried a hatred accumulated over an entire lifetime?

’She knows the future?’

The thought sent a chill through Aldric’s entire body.

Impossible.

He was the transmigrator.

He was the one who held the storyline.

If a character in this world also knew things that hadn’t yet happened, his greatest advantage would cease to exist.

Aldric immediately channeled mana into the ring on his right hand.

Inside the ring was a black talisman, its surface carved with intricate spatial lines. It was something he had found in a ruin, originally intended to be saved for a more dangerous phase of the storyline.

There was only one.

Aldric had never imagined he would need to use it this early.

Catrina sensed the spatial fluctuation.

She immediately thrust the foil forward.

The blade pierced through the armor, driving straight toward his heart.

Aldric crushed the talisman.

The space around him instantly fractured like a pane of glass. His body was pulled into the rift just as the foil’s tip punched through the front of his shirt, leaving a long trail of blood suspended in the air.

A deep boom echoed through the gorge.

Aldric vanished.

The black threads immediately surged into the rift, but managed to pull back only a scrap of fabric and a few drops of blood before the space sealed shut.

The Black Rose soldiers prepared to give chase.

Catrina raised her hand.

"Stop."

A female soldier bowed her head and asked: "Your Grace, should we determine the teleportation destination?"

"No need."

Catrina sheathed the foil and wiped the blood from its tip with a white cloth.

She knew full well that Aldric couldn’t die so easily.

In the previous life, she and the other women had tried many, many times.

Poison.

Assassination.

Siege.

Destroying his mana core.

There had even been a time they beheaded him in front of thousands.

But fate always found a reason to keep him alive. A holy relic would appear, a betrayal at the last moment, or another body prepared in advance.

Once, Catrina had personally driven a blade through Aldric’s heart.

Three days later, he reappeared in the body of a subordinate.

Another time, Leviana froze even his soul. An unidentified goddess descended and, citing the reason that the world could not yet lose its chosen one, removed Aldric from the seal.

They had tried everything.

In the end, only when the surviving women chose to die together, offering their lives and souls as sacrifice, was Aldric finally dragged down to hell alongside them.

Killing him now would be meaningless.

On the contrary, it would alert the forces that protected a Son of Fate, forcing them to intervene earlier.

Catrina had ordered the attack not because she truly believed she could kill Aldric here.

She wanted to force him to expend the Void Step Talisman.

Wanted to gauge his current strength.

Wanted to plant fear in the eyes of the man who had always believed the entire world was nothing more than a story written for him alone.

All three objectives had been achieved.

"This time you got away."

Catrina looked at the spot where Aldric had vanished.

"Next time, you’ll have to pay with something more."

Garran Holt still hadn’t lowered his sword.

An unknown army had appeared, attacked Aldric directly, and forced him to use a spatial artifact to flee. Even though their actions had indirectly helped House Avarenne, he couldn’t let his guard down.

"Who are you?"

The masked woman turned to look at him.

"Catrina."

Garran’s brow creased slightly.

"Which Catrina?"

She pulled the hood back a little, revealing long silver hair behind the mask.

"Catrina Veyr."

Garran’s expression changed.

He had heard that name before.

The widowed Duchess of House Veyr.

A woman cursed with a ruined face, treated as a bad omen by her own family, who had barely appeared in public for years.

No one had ever said she possessed an army like Black Rose.

Garran looked at the white-armored female soldiers around him, then asked: "Why did the Duchess of Veyr know this ambush would happen?"

"I have no obligation to explain."

"Then your target was Aldric?"

Catrina looked toward the spot where the spatial rift had vanished.

"No."

Garran grew even more guarded.

Catrina slid the foil back into its sheath, then looked him straight in the eye.

"Where is Lathel?"

Garran didn’t answer right away.

"Why are you looking for Young Master Lathel?"

Catrina was silent for a few seconds.

Behind the mask, she remembered a small house decorated with white flowers.

A table already set with two glasses of wine.

A wedding dress that no guest had ever seen.

That day, Catrina had waited from morning until night.

Lathel had promised he would come.

He wasn’t someone who broke his promises, so she had continued waiting even after the sun set and the candles had nearly burned down to nothing.

When the door finally opened, the person who walked in was not Lathel.

A female guard knelt before her, covered head to toe in blood, and managed only a single sentence.

Lathel is dead.

Catrina had still been wearing the white wedding dress when she went to the place where they found him.

The dress was quickly stained by snow and blood.

The man she had wanted to marry lay cold upon the ground, the hands that had once helped her remove the veil from her face no longer holding any warmth.

Catrina had held him for a very long time.

Even when Leviana and the other women arrived, she still refused to let go.

This time, Lathel was still alive.

She didn’t need to prepare a wedding.

Didn’t need guests.

Didn’t need anyone’s blessings.

She only needed to take him somewhere Aldric could never reach.

"I’ve come to get him."

Catrina answered.

Garran looked at her for a long time before saying: "Young Master Lathel is at the Aldric family estate, caring for Lady Leviana."

The hand Catrina had resting on the foil’s hilt tightened slightly.

Leviana.

She wasn’t surprised the other woman was still alive. The two of them had died together in the final ritual; it wasn’t impossible that Leviana had also returned.

But if Leviana had truly been reincarnated, she would certainly never let Lathel leave her side.

Catrina smiled faintly behind the mask.

The smile held no warmth at all.

"Then I’ll go see her."